KDE 4.2.4 Released

An anonymous reader writes "KDE 4.2.4 has been released. See the release announcement for details." Barring a "security issue or another grave bug," this is the end of the KDE 4.2 line, which means for distros based on long-term support, it might be the thing to get used to for a while.

Comments

BSD?

[hackel]

I didn't know KDE was a BSD project now.

Re:BSD?

[chill]

This is Slashdot. Always go with the default reason. The editors fucked up. It explains almost everything.

Dupes. The editors fucked up.
Miscategorized. The editors fucked up.
Everything that says "iPhone" promoted to front page. The editors fucked up.
Cowboy Neal. The editors fucked up.

See?

KDE 4 looks promising

[overshoot]

But the wait for it to be sufficiently feature-complete to be usable is a strain.

My Kubuntu 8.04 is getting kinda long in the tooth, but the newer ones don't work at all, unless someone knows of a KDE 3.59 or 3.60 backport -- that'd be sweet.

Re:KDE 4 looks promising

[cbhacking]

KDE 4.2 is perfectly usable. It's what 4 (in general) should ahve been from the start. Don't even bother looking at 4.1 or 4.0, and if you do, don't expect 4.2 to be the same. It's not. The older ones are broken, yes, but don't assume taht means that 4.x is *ALL* broken.

Re:KDE 4 looks promising

[gigabites2]

That's because of the immense contrast between the two versions. Say you had had to use 4.0 for months and then suddenly switched to 4.1. Big contrast. Say you've used 3.5 for more than a year and suddenly switch to 4.1. Features and stability are still not up to par with the rock-solid 3.5 builds. It's all about perspective I suppose. It is worth mentioning that cbhacking is correct, though. In terms of features and usability, 4.2 is a huge step forward with 4.3 hopefully surpassing it and coming closer to 3.5.

The Fundamental Fatal Flaw Of Desktop Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Disparate people/teams all working in isolation with no single controlling authority to enforce a consistent UI over the entire system.

So you have Idea/Concept 1 and 2 that are both great in isolation but when thrown together they make no sense. Everyone dumps their own pet favorite UI ideas into the mix and you get one big mess.

And anyone who dares to question the fatal flaw gets modded as a -1 Troll and a heretic and unbeliever to the 'wonder that is Linux on the desktop'

And that is why Android is exploding onto Cellphones and Netbooks while standard Linux has gotten whipped right out of the market by Microsoft.

Re:The Fundamental Fatal Flaw Of Desktop Linux

[SanityInAnarchy]

Disparate people/teams all working in isolation with no single controlling authority to enforce a consistent UI over the entire system.

No such single controlling entity exists which enforces a consistent UI over any desktop system.

Play with Windows for a bit. There's the standard way you're supposed to do things, and then there's the IE7/8 way, and then there's the Office "Ribbon" way (which is implemented several ways in several different apps), and then there's the iTunes "let's make it look OSX-y" way...

Or OS X. Mac users seem to be under some really weird illusion that X programs make the system inconsistent, when even among recent apps, you have one aqua-ish look, and one chrome/steel-ish look.

I could go on...

So you have Idea/Concept 1 and 2 that are both great in isolation but when thrown together they make no sense. Everyone dumps their own pet favorite UI ideas into the mix and you get one big mess.

A mess which somehow works everywhere else, but when it comes to Desktop Linux, this is the reason people ditch it.

Not lack of drivers. Not lack of application support. Not lack of vendor support, or of preinstalled options. Not sheer FUD about new things.

No, it's the lack of a consistent UI that's the problem.

And anyone who dares to question the fatal flaw gets modded as a -1 Troll and a heretic and unbeliever

Or as someone who brings up a tired old troll which has been discounted time and time again.

And that is why Android is exploding onto Cellphones and Netbooks

"Exploding"? Really?

How's it doing compared to the iPhone?

No, Android has exactly the same "controlling authority" as everything else. That is, it doesn't -- as soon as you install a third-party app, you get whatever you get.

while standard Linux has gotten whipped right out of the market by Microsoft.

Desktop Linux was ever in a position to be "whipped out of the market" by Microsoft? News to me.

No, Microsoft has always dominated the desktop market. Linux and OS X both seem to be growing lately, but not fast enough to make a real dent.

But at the moment, Microsoft dominates the market mostly because Microsoft dominates the market.

Re:I just tried KDE 4.1

[yet-another-lobbyist]

I had HUGE issues with KDE 4.1 myself. It might be worth trying to switch off desktop effects. In my case, however, even that did not solve all the performance issues.
The big change came with KDE 4.2. Things really became very smooth and fast and rock solid. If you are planning to upgrade to jaunty, I would definitely recommend trying it. (If I remember correctly, there is also a way to run 4.2 on kubuntu 8.10 -- I think I did this for a while.)

Re:I just tried KDE 4.1

[cbhacking]

4.1 isn't even close to 4.2. You might as well compare a beta to a release version (think of it this way - 4.0 was the tech preview, incomplete and buggy but with APIs in place. 4.1 is the beta - many of the features but not all, and still buggy. 4.2 is release, with bugs fixed and features in place).

You'd think that talking about 4.1 in an article about 4.2.4 would be obviously absurd, but apparently not...

4.2 is a grea release: its a good upgrade from 3.5

[jaymz2k4]

As a long term KDE user (since the very first version) I have found 3.5 to be a great release. It's still what I'm running on my work desktop. I have to say, installing 4.0 at home was a mistake. It definitly put me off upgrading my work machine. The 4.0 release basically rendered my home environment as almost unusable. On top of that the semi-upgrade made the 3.5 install messed up, so I was pretty pissed.

When 4.1 came out I was fairly happy with the stability, a lot of little issues (things like the taskbar resizing) had been worked out but it still felt somewhat unfinished. Now, having upgraded to 4.2 I have to say I'm really impressed. I wasn't expecting the change to be as full as it was, 4.2 feels much more complete and definitely is the upgrade path you want to follow from 3.5 if your a KDE user. Things like the windowing effects work much better, the plasma desktop has reached a level that is usable all the time and the level of integration has improved a lot (checkboxes finally render properly when clicked in firefox for one, dolphin is getting pretty damn good and okular is great). KDE is at the point where I'm now planning on an upgrade at work.

I have to agree a bit with some of the UI criticism of amarok, I found the jump to version 2 pretty dramatic. It's almost like a whole new app but I'm giving it a good go for a while. The last media player I really used before amarok was xmms. But yeah, bottom line, two thumbs up for 4.2

KDE GOT IT RIGHT

[cyclomedia]

I think KDE nailed it with their 4.0 release, but let's explore the other options:

1. have 3.9,3.99, 3.999,3.9999,3.9999b,3.9999c,4.0, then 4.1 anyway because the avalanche of new users inevitably found new bugs
2. have 4.0 alpha1 to alpha 12, beta 1 to beta 18, rc1 to rc 9, then 4.0. Then 4.1 anyway (see above)
3. keep it at 4.0 but have a zillion internal minor mini version numbers for 2 years until they though it was finished before releasing it to the public. Then have 4.1 anyway (see above again)

Chaning the major version number at the same time as the major change in architecture was absolutely the sensible and mature thing to do, it was never going to stay 4.0 long anyway (see above again again). So it was buggy as hell but you still had the choice of using 3.x stable, it still had "new development architecture it's buggy as hell" plastered all over it, it's not like civilization started to crumble because some "point zero" piece of software somewhere wasnt perfect. People need to chill out, man.